1. You have understood correctly! Yes, on his own man can NEVER
earn enough merit to be made right with God. That's the reason why
sacrifices are required throughout the OT. Without the shedding of
blood there is no remission of sins. Another being must take your
sins and atone for them so you can live. But the blood of bulls and
sheep are only temporary and a shadow. Only a perfect sinless man
can make that perfect sacrifice that forever satisfy the holiness
and justice of God. Which is why the Bible teaches that salvation
is by grace and not by works, so that no one can boast.
2. Perhaps you can further clarify on what Buddhism teaches as I
think I am hearing different views here. It seems that there are
three views in Buddhism, Self, No-Self, and Not-Self?
3. By my understanding, love, compassion and mercy can only come
from self-conscious and self-aware beings. It is either true
that the Self exists or it does not. In Christianity it
is not the liberation from self that is the issue, but the
liberation from sin.
Only a
perfect sinless man can make that perfect sacrifice that forever
satisfy the holiness and justice of God. Which is why the Bible
teaches that salvation is by grace and not by works, so that no one
can boast.
As far as Buddhism is concerned, by grace
alone salvation cannot be reached. It can only be attained not just
by faith alone but through the purification of body, mind and the
development of wisdom. When one have attained to such state there
is nothing to be boast about.
Perhaps
you can further clarify on what Buddhism teaches as I think I am
hearing different views here. It seems that there are three views
in Buddhism, Self, No-Self, and
Not-Self?
‘Self’ as I have pointed out above is the 5
aggregates that make up the physical and mental constitutions all
human being. It is impermanent and in a constant state of changes.
It is just a conventional interpretation. No Self or Not Self? Read
this explanation if it is of interest to you.
No-self or Not-self?
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
©
1996–2011
<!-- robots
content="none" --><!-- #H_meta --><!-- #H_billboard
--><!-- /robots -->One of the first stumbling blocks that
Westerners often encounter when they learn about Buddhism is the
teaching on anatta, often translated as no-self. This teaching is a
stumbling block for two reasons. First, the idea of there being no
self doesn't fit well with other Buddhist teachings, such as the
doctrine of kamma and rebirth: If there's no self, what experiences
the results of kamma and takes rebirth? Second, it doesn't fit well
with our own Judeo-Christian background, which assumes the
existence of an eternal soul or self as a basic presupposition: If
there's no self, what's the purpose of a spiritual life? Many books
try to answer these questions, but if you look at the Pali canon —
the earliest extant record of the Buddha's teachings — you won't
find them addressed at all. In fact, the one place where the Buddha
was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused
to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that
there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme
forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice
impossible. Thus the question should be put aside. To understand
what his silence on this question says about the meaning of anatta,
we first have to look at his teachings on how questions should be
asked and answered, and how to interpret his answers.
The Buddha divided all
questions into four classes: those that deserve a categorical
(straight yes or no) answer; those that deserve an analytical
answer, defining and qualifying the terms of the question; those
that deserve a counter-question, putting the ball back in the
questioner's court; and those that deserve to be put aside. The
last class of question consists of those that don't lead to the end
of suffering and stress. The first duty of a teacher, when asked a
question, is to figure out which class the question belongs to, and
then to respond in the appropriate way. You don't, for example, say
yes or no to a question that should be put aside. If you are the
person asking the question and you get an answer, you should then
determine how far the answer should be interpreted. The Buddha said
that there are two types of people who misrepresent him: those who
draw inferences from statements that shouldn't have inferences
drawn from them, and those who don't draw inferences from those
that should.
These are the basic
ground rules for interpreting the Buddha's teachings, but if we
look at the way most writers treat the anatta doctrine, we find
these ground rules ignored. Some writers try to qualify the no-self
interpretation by saying that the Buddha denied the existence of an
eternal self or a separate self, but this is to give an analytical
answer to a question that the Buddha showed should be put aside.
Others try to draw inferences from the few statements in the
discourse that seem to imply that there is no self, but it seems
safe to assume that if one forces those statements to give an
answer to a question that should be put aside, one is drawing
inferences where they shouldn't be drawn.
So, instead of
answering "no" to the question of whether or not there is a self —
interconnected or separate, eternal or not — the Buddha felt that
the question was misguided to begin with. Why? No matter how you
define the line between "self" and "other," the notion of self
involves an element of self-identification and clinging, and thus
suffering and stress. This holds as much for an interconnected
self, which recognizes no "other," as it does for a separate self.
If one identifies with all of nature, one is pained by every felled
tree. It also holds for an entirely "other" universe, in which the
sense of alienation and futility would become so debilitating as to
make the quest for happiness — one's own or that of others —
impossible. For these reasons, the Buddha advised paying no
attention to such questions as "Do I exist?" or "Don't I exist?"
for however you answer them, they lead to suffering and
stress.
To avoid the suffering
implicit in questions of "self" and "other," he offered an
alternative way of dividing up experience: the four Noble Truths of
stress, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation.
Rather than viewing these truths as pertaining to self or other, he
said, one should recognize them simply for what they are, in and of
themselves, as they are directly experienced, and then perform the
duty appropriate to each. Stress should be comprehended, its cause
abandoned, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation
developed. These duties form the context in which the anatta
doctrine is best understood. If you develop the path of virtue,
concentration, and discernment to a state of calm well-being and
use that calm state to look at experience in terms of the Noble
Truths, the questions that occur to the mind are not "Is there a
self? What is my self?" but rather "Am I suffering stress because
I'm holding onto this particular phenomenon? Is it really me,
myself, or mine? If it's stressful but not really me or mine, why
hold on?" These last questions merit straightforward answers, as
they then help you to comprehend stress and to chip away at the
attachment and clinging — the residual sense of self-identification
— that cause it, until ultimately all traces of self-identification
are gone and all that's left is limitless freedom.
In this sense, the
anatta teaching is not a doctrine of no-self, but a not-self
strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading
to the highest, undying happiness. At that point, questions of
self, no-self, and not-self fall aside. Once there's the experience
of such total freedom, where would there be any concern about
what's experiencing it, or whether or not it's a self?
It is either
true that the Self exists or it does not. In Christianity it is not
the liberation from self that is the issue, but the liberation from
sin.
It would be best if you can elaborate for
me more on what exactly is the ‘Self’ in the Christian concept,
otherwise we will just be going about speaking on thing each of us
interpreted very differently.
